When comparing Source vs GameGuru, the Slant community recommends Source for most people. In the question“What are the best 3D game engines?” Source is ranked 29th while GameGuru is ranked 38th. The most important reason people chose Source is:
Valve's official documentation website is great for newbies. It demonstrates the pros and cons of the engine (and since the website isn't maintained by Valve, but instead the community, the pros and cons are largely unbiased). There are also a number of pages dedicated to entities used within official Valve games and also community-made mods that were turned into full-fledged games by Valve. These pages explain the ins and outs of how most source programming works. There are also guides for Valve's tools which are both included in Source SDK and in any Valve-developed game.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great documentation
Valve's official documentation website is great for newbies. It demonstrates the pros and cons of the engine (and since the website isn't maintained by Valve, but instead the community, the pros and cons are largely unbiased). There are also a number of pages dedicated to entities used within official Valve games and also community-made mods that were turned into full-fledged games by Valve. These pages explain the ins and outs of how most source programming works. There are also guides for Valve's tools which are both included in Source SDK and in any Valve-developed game.
Pro Runs on every potato pc
Since it has precalculated lighting, this engine is great for low end PCs too.
Pro Many basic entities
You don't need to code your own door or ladder etc. You can pretty much use every entity used in Half-Life 2 yourself easily.
Pro Visual logic, no programming
Of course you can program stuff into source but for level design only, source has a really easy input/output system for your level logic (e.g. doors, trigger when player walks into room...).
Pro Has a built-in video capture and editing application
Source includes Source Filmmaker, a video capture and editing application.
Pro Easy way to export or load source models to unity and maps
Pro Designed for ease of use
Simplicity and accessibility are the core design goals of FPS Creator Reloaded.
Pro Active and helpful community
Users share ideas, help, and advice through the official forums. The community also provides a wealth of free assets, and the GameGuru Assets Store sees constant additions.
Pro Continuous development and updates
News and improvements are released on a monthly schedule. Interaction between The Game Creators and project backers is excellent.
Pro Awesome tech support
Pro Easy to use your own custom assets
Easily import your own 3D models with the built-in importer and create custom characters with the Character creator. Custom weapons are much more difficult, though.
Pro Massive community of users
The gamer creator forums have a large number of users, developing games, making models for sale and to give away for other users. They answer questions, help each other with problems in their games, and can make using this software so much more fun and easy.
Pro Royalty free
Games you publish with GameGuru can be sold without any restrictions or commissions.
Pro Easy to use editor
An easy 3D editor to create your own maps in seconds with drag-and-drop function.
Pro Friendly GUI
Awesome friendly GUI, and quite easy to use.
Pro Building editor
Currently in development but already looking very good! Easily create big and customized buildings with default building blocks and share them with others.
Also very easy to use in the designer: The buildings are treated like entities but still directly available in the 'building editor mode'.
Pro Powerful scripting language
Uses Lua.
Pro Large asset store
A store where you can buy various assets for your games like sounds, 3D models, weapons... Very good prices and a lot of assets are even free.
Pro Feature priorities are chosen by the community
The Game Creators team frequent the forums and ask the community for feeback and suggestions both there and via an open poll on the website. They have a great history of reading suggestions, viewing screenshots, and generally working with the community.
Pro Optimised engine for editor
The game engine is optimized for efficient use of memory.
Cons
Con Only for mods
Normally, you can only use the Source Engine to develop "source-mods" (as Steam calls them), however the developer wiki is correct in saying Valve have a proven track-record for finding source-mods and turning them into fully-fledged games, Black Mesa Source is a good example of this, as it began life as a source-mod available for free, however Valve turned it into a fully-fledged and paid game.
Con SDK is outdated and difficult to use
Source SDK has not been updated in ages, and has instead been "re-released" under different names, e.g "Source SDK 2013 Singleplayer".
It's honestly easier to use the version of SDK included with any Source game, namely Portal 2 or DOTA 2, since both have a variant of Source SDK that is more updated than anything you can find in the tools section of Steam.
Con Slow
Everything takes ages..feels like Unreal 4
Con Lack of user-interface
Although you can customize a lot, the user-interface does not show that. But plans are in place to improve this with some front facing GUI into the LUA scripts so you don't need to code as much.